The Pirate and the Princess
He was an adventurer who burst away the bars;
She was a princess, exiled from Mars. They spiralled into love from being so alone. They both had been chilled to the bone Basking in the warming they both began to give They both began to grow and they both began to live And moving into freedom they both began to be The branches and the tree. But when branches bear fruit that tree would disown And roots go unwatered as dry as a bone And warmth that isn't treasured isn't treasure any more. They both start to search for the door. But the doorways are all hidden and the walls are smooth and bare. The planet outside is airless and cold. They never see the rain and they never will again Only the pain of growing old. Guitar ChordsDm C
Bb A Dm C Bb A Dm |
Background to the songThis is a depressing little song about how personal relationships can turn bad - as so many of them do these days. In this scenario the couple decides to stay together, even though the joy has gone out of the relationship, and so experience less and less joy. It is of course a composite based on relationships I have witnessed - of others and my own - but not actually about any one in particular.
The words and the musicThere is a lot of symbolism in the lyrics. This was partly deliberate, to mask which relationships I was referring to, and partly because symbols convey more accurately the depth of the emotions I wished to express. The story of a space age pirate and princess describes a sort of one sided relationship where one worships the other and the other accepts this adulation as natural. The setting in a lone spaceship on an uninhabited and hostile world attempts to convey the isolation that a lot of couples experience in the modern world.
The music is set to a south-american beat offset with a repetitive mixture of major and minor chords in an attempt to create an appropriate mood of desperate festive weirdness. I was at the time experimenting with keyboard effects so the song is performed with a keyboard backing instead of my more usual guitar. |